The 2016 AEROSPACE THEMATIC WORKSHOP on "Fundamentals of of Collisions of Fast Particles with Surfaces" will take place during the week of 11-16 September 2016 at the well known CNRS Conference Centre Paul Langevin, Aussois, at the heart of the beautiful French Alps. This is the very first conference of its kind, in a consecrated series dedicated to the fundamental issues of scientific disciplines relevant to aeronautics and space.

Previous editions of the workshops were dedicated to flow and combustion control by plasmas and held in Villa Monastero, Italy (2007), Les Houches (2009, 2011 & 2015) and Aussois (2013).

Objectives

The workshop aims to survey the state of the art of our knowledge in the physics and chemistry of high-speed particle collisions (5000 -15000 m/s, several eV energy) with solid surfaces, namely:

surface accommodation and subsurface bond breaking and damage

chemical abstraction, oxidation, etc.

atom exchange reactions

emission of radiation, absorption of radiation from the hot boundary layer and the reaction products and subsequent photo-chemistry

reaction of the ablated elements with the boundary layer of the incoming fluid flow

ionization and plasma formation

All these mechanisms are present in several important applications and industrial domains:

Reentry heat shield design and manufacture

Energetic material explosive decomposition

Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapour Deposition of semi conductors

Erosion of electrodes and insulators in plasma thrusters

Action of solar wind, Extreme Ultraviolet optics

Divertor interactions in fusion machines.

Besides, these issues are of fundamental scientific interest.

A fair level of understanding has been reached in these areas: refined quantum-mechanical approaches are used, sophisticated experimental methodologies have been developed and modelling has reached a high predictive level.

Yet it is felt that further progress may ensue from cross fertilisation between the communities concerned. It is the ambition of this workshop to gather their best leaders in order to discuss modelling of the physical-chemical phenomena, experimental diagnostic strategies, development of more resilient heat shields, better tailored explosives or flawless crystalline deposits. Some of these leaders from Europe, Russia and the USA have expressed their interest in the project and are expected to give very enlightening presentations.